Seven Times Better
by chocolatebearturk
Summary: All she wanted was to sit down. So what had made things so… complicated? Songs, sore muscles, and seven rare non sightings. JONAS; Nick/Macy 2SHOT!
1. Smile

**Seven Times Better, by Poet on the Run**

**Chapter One: Smile**

A groan escaped from Macy's lips as she sat herself on the bench in the atrium. She massaged her thigh, unable to hide a grimace at the slow, painful throbbing. One of the only drawbacks of being a sports star (besides injuring the three most awesome guys on the planet with her equipment) was the sore muscles. _And_ the fact that she couldn't afford to be distracted during a game.

But yesterday's fiasco was over and there was little she could do to remove _that_ sting, so she decided to concentrate on the dull ache in her legs.

Of course, if she hadn't freaked out when Jessica told her about—

_No!_ Macy cut herself off before she could journey down _that_ road. _It wasn't just you! We _all_ need to work on concentration._

She was so distracted by her thoughts that she didn't even notice another student approaching.

"Hey," someone said above her, causing the girl to start. She looked up and gasped.

"Nick!" she exclaimed. She jumped off the bench as if it were electrified, ignoring the screaming protest from her thighs. "I'm sorry; I totally forgot that this was your spot! I'll just let you—"

"Macy," the boy said quickly, trying to halt the flow of apologies—without much success.

"Sorry, I was just tired and the bench was there and—"

"Macy…"

"I wasn't even thinking about you at all—not that I don't ever think about you! I—"

"_Macy_…"

"I don't know _what_ I was thinking; I mean—"

"MACY!"

The girl finally fell silent upon hearing his exasperated tone, looking positively chastised. She looked down at her hands, which were still clenched tightly around the handle of her gym bag.

This meant that she missed the rare smile that crossed his face.

"Macy, it's okay if you want to sit here," Nick said slowly and deliberately. _He_ knew that _Macy_ knew that he was sincere when he used that tone. "It's not really _my_ spot, so you can sit here if you want. And… the bench can hold more than one person at a time."

Macy's eyes jumped back to his face, but it was too late to catch the smile. Her eyes sparkled with… what, exactly? Hope? Excitement? Happiness?

"Really?" she asked. Her voice was hushed, as if she thought that speaking louder would shatter the chance.

"Well, yeah." Nick said. He smirked a little. "Look at how long this bench is. It was made to support at _least_ two people."

Her laughter was unexpected, to say the least. A titter might not have surprised him. An all-out belly laugh would have been within the realms of possibility. But the soft, appreciative giggle threw him for a complete loop.

"I guess you're right," Macy said slowly. Still, she waited for him to sit first. She turned to put down her gym bag, missing the second rare smile Nick gave her—even rarer because it was the second in about the same number of minutes. But she might have caught it, had she not grimaced again when her thighs complained at the movement.

"You okay?" asked the boy. She never knew that he had smiled, for the expression had been replaced by one of concern. His brown eyes seemed liquid and she fought hard against a blush.

"I'm fine—just recovering from volleyball practice after the game yesterday," said the brunette. She tried for a smile and found that it came easier than before.

"But couldn't the game be considered practice?"

"After the way we played?"

Nick looked stricken for a moment and he glanced away, a sheepish expression on his face. He gave her a sort-of-kind-of half-of-half of a smile.

"Sorry about that," he said. "I didn't mean to cause trouble when I came yesterday."

"What?" It was Macy's turn to look like she'd been hit. "No, that wasn't your fault! If we were better players, you wouldn't have been a distraction."

"Still, I could have been less visible… Worn a hat and sunglasses…" The young Lucas was grasping at straws, but he truly didn't want Macy to blame herself.

The girl waved off his excuses. "It doesn't matter. What's done is done. We'll do better next time, with or without you watching."

Nick opened his mouth to say more, but eventually closed it when words failed him. He merely nodded and prayed she wouldn't hold yesterday against him.

They were quiet for a few minutes, unable to think of something to say. The silence seemed to stretch uncomfortably between them, until an idea finally struck Nick.

"If I said that—" he started.

"Stella told me—" Macy began at the same time.

Shocked, they stopped and looked at one another. A moment passed and Nick suddenly grinned.

"You go first," he said, gesturing with his hand before resting it on his knee.

Macy, dazed by the smile (the first she'd seen of the _three_ that had transpired), could only comply.

"O-oh. I was just going to say that I heard Stella and Joe talking about your new song." Macy said. "Nothing big; just that it was giving you some trouble."

"_Some_ trouble?" snorted the young man. "Can you say, 'understatement of the century'? I can't get it right at all."

Macy turned her head to the side to hide a smile, for she knew that perfectionist Nick wouldn't like the song until he was on the twenty-third draft. According to Stella, he was only on his fifth.

"Mace?" the boy said suddenly. He leaned around to get a good look at her face. "Are you—you are! You're _laughing_ at me!"

_That_ got the brunette's attention. "What? No! I was just… You were—"

"Being laughed at!" Nick accused. And suddenly, it was clear. He was joking with her again.

"_Nick_!" she said, smiling reluctantly.

"_Macy_!" he returned, also giving her a grin. "This song is just… I don't know where it came from. I got the inspiration a few days ago in English, but now I don't have a clue."

"What's it about?" Macy asked, tilting her head.

"A girl. What else?" joked the musician.

"Oh, come on," said the brunette. She quickly scraped up some courage and gently elbowed him in the side. "What about _Live to Party_? Or _When You Look Me In the Eyes_? Those weren't about girls."

"_Look Me In the Eyes_ could be for a girl," Nick defended. But he remembered who he was talking to; Macy, number one super fan of everything JONAS. She knew exactly what had inspired that song. He sighed. "Okay, so this new one's _partially_ for a girl. There was something in the passage we were going over—this phrase. _Out of sight, out of mind._ It just got me thinking."

"Out of sight, out of mind?" Macy frowned when she remembered where she'd heard the familiar phrase. "I heard my mom talking to my aunt about that when she got divorced; she said that if she put all of his things in a box and removed all the pictures of him, it would be easier to move on."

Nick half-nodded and half-shrugged. "That's not exactly the angle I was going for. I thought about what that would be like—to think that when you left someone's sight, they'd just forget about you. It'd be pretty lonely to think that you didn't make much of an impact on other people."

"So that's what you wrote the song about?" Macy wrinkled her nose a bit. JONAS songs could have a melancholic sound on occasion, but they weren't usually so negative. She was so preoccupied with her distaste that she didn't notice the fifth grin that Nick had given her.

"Well, that's what I tried for the first draft. But it was really…" He trailed off as he tried to think of a word to describe the feeling of the song.

"Gloomy?" suggested the girl. The boy actually laughed.

"Yeah, something like that," he said, still smiling. "So I scrapped it. And now I've got this… thing worked out for some kind of a chorus, but I still don't like it."

"Well…" Macy chided herself mentally for being a coward. "Maybe… I mean—um. Maybe I could… y'know… help."

Nick swung his head around to stare at her. There was something… _more_ than shock in his eyes. Something she couldn't read. "Really?"

"Um… sure!" She smiled nervously. It was a tense moment, during which she found herself falling into habit as an attempt to break the silence. "What kind of number one super fan would I be if I didn't try to help you with your writer's block?"

Nick merely blinked and fished a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He handed it to Macy.

"This is what I've got so far. I don't know if you just want to read it or if you want me to sing it…" He trailed off when he saw the look in her eyes and chided himself absently for thinking that she'd want anything less than an all-out serenade. "Well… I don't have my guitar right now, so…"

Without a word or a gesture, Macy was able to clearly communicate to him how little she cared about accompaniment. So he turned the paper toward him so that he could pretend to read it (for he knew it by heart), and leaned closer to her than was probably necessary. Ignoring the way her breath caught in her throat, he began.

_I'm out of your hair,__  
But am I under your skin?  
__Oh, why can't this be mutual;  
The way you pull me in?_

Macy barely contained a shiver as he sang to her. His voice was soft and it was almost as though he was whispering the words directly to her—as though he had written the song with her in mind. But that wasn't possible… was it? He _was_ awfully close… She closed her eyes and put a smile on, pushing those thoughts away. For now, she would concentrate on the song that was giving him trouble and savor the feel of his breath on her ear.

_If I'm out of your sight,  
Am I still on your mind?_  
'_Cause I know when you're not there__  
I can still see your eyes._

He took a deep breath and drew away, enough to see her expression. Once again, her eyes were closed, so she had no idea that she'd just broken a record with Nick Lucas. Seven smiles within fifteen minutes; he hadn't been this cheerful since… well, a _while_ ago. This time, his smile was more for himself than her. Her expression, a mixture of excitement, euphoria, and disbelief, was impossibly cute. He was almost tempted to…

"That was really good, Nick," she said softly, finally opening her eyes. She seemed a little startled that his face was so close, but continued nonetheless. "I think I understand what you were talking about, though. The melody makes it sound like you're going for something more… uplifting. Not moody."

"Exactly!" Nick exclaimed. He drew further back so that he wouldn't be shouting in her ear. "That's what I've been trying to tell Joe and Kevin for the past two days!"

She flushed at the praise, but continued with her 'analysis.' "Um… you're putting the speaker here in the role of the victim. If you want to go uplifting… I would say that you need to be the confident one."

"The confident one?" Nick repeated. The girl bobbed her head.

"Well, sort of like you're reassuring someone. You're letting them know that they're very much in your thoughts when they leave your presence." Macy said. "So it becomes more about them and the thoughts that you can't control. Or, um, something like that…" She trailed off when she noticed Nick staring at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. It wasn't unpleasant… just unnerving.

"Um… Nick?"

He seemed to break out of a daze and immediately gave her the brightest smile she had ever seen on his face. It was nothing short of incredible—the way his eyes lit up and his eyebrows rose—the way his slightly chapped lips framed his white teeth—the way one of his cheeks dimpled as one corner of his mouth rose slightly higher out of habit. Macy knew that she could have died perfectly happy right then and there.

"Macy, I think you just broke my writer's block," he said, incredulous but deliriously happy.

"M-m-me?" she stammered. The smile wasn't going away—in fact, it seemed to be growing wider by the minute!

"Yes, you!" Nick said. All at once, he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her mouth to his in a swift, hard kiss. "You are amazing, Macy Misa! _Amazing_!"

He pressed another kiss to her stunned lips before he stood, eager to write down the ideas that were dancing behind his eyes. At the last minute, he fished a pen out of his pocket and took the paper with the old lyrics on it. He scribbled a note, handed the paper back to Macy, and picked up his bag.

He leaned down and hugged the girl tightly, whispering fervently in her ear, "Thank you!"

And before she knew it, he was gone.

Macy was shocked, needless to say, and it took a few minutes for her to understand exactly what had just happened. Even then, she didn't believe it. He had come so quickly and left so fast… she wasn't even sure that it was anything more than a daydream. Until she looked down at her hand, which was still holding the folded piece of paper. Gingerly, as though she was afraid of what she would see, Macy unfolded the sheet and read the message.

_Sorry to jet off, but you know how I am when I get inspired._

_If you think that I did what I did because I was grateful, _YOU'RE WRONG_._

_Meet me here after school tomorrow if you want to hear the finished version of that song. I'll have my guitar._

_Yours,  
Nick_

A delighted grin overtook Macy's face and she slowly closed the note. She had never been happier to be sore from a practice, or that her team had lost a game. Little things like that didn't matter in the long run, really.

Peeking at the note again, she finally let out a fangirl squeal that had been building up inside her for weeks. She couldn't _wait_ for tomorrow!

* * *

_a/n: So, it took me a total of three days to write this. The first draft was about four pages long when I wrote it in my composition notebook. I believe that when I typed it up, it came out to about 856 words. The story you see now is 2420 words long. You're welcome._

_I wrote the lyrics that Nick sings. Yes, I intended them to be kind of suck-ish; Nick isn't happy with the quality, if you recall. I had two versions of the same song lying around from a scrapped fic, so the lyrics you see here are the earlier version changed around a bit. I'm debating whether or not to make this into a two-shot so that I can put the better version into use._

_Hm. Why don't you tell me when you drop a review filled with _constructive criticism_? Gasp!_

_(Seriously, though; I'd love to get someone's opinion on this. There are so many parts that just don't seem to mesh!)_

_Much love,  
Beth_


	2. Laugh

**Chapter Two: Laugh**

Macy jerked her head in time with the guitar, ignoring the way her brown hair flew around her face. She mouthed the lyrics, uncaring of who saw her rather… unfeminine behavior.

_TROGDOR WAS A MAN!_

She didn't seem to notice the _stares_ she got from other students as she crossed to her locker. No one had seen her 'rock out' like this for about three or four years.

_I MEAN—HE WAS A DRAGON-MAN!_

Of course, one didn't rock out to a JONAS song. Not like she was doing now, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut as she tested the flexibility of her neck. She clutched at her now open locker door tightly, fighting hard not to let her middle and ring fingers curl toward her palm.

_OR, MAYBE, HE WAS JUST A DRAGON…_

She didn't notice a commotion traveling down the hall toward her as people dove out of the way. Papers flew, hasty apologies were called out, and one lone Horace Mantis student barreled across the tile. He came to a stop about a foot away from her, stunned that she hadn't yet noticed him and at her peculiar behavior. He came closer and could faintly hear a voice wailing over a screeching and crazy guitar.

"_Burninating all the peoples! And their thatched-roof COTTAGES!_"

Wait… he _knew_ that song.

"Trogdor, Macy?" he said finally, pulling out one of her earbuds.

She spun, startled, and narrowly avoided hitting him with her binder. Upon identifying her would-be victim, she relaxed. "Nick! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sneak up on you?" Nick said. He raised his eyebrows and smirked before pointing back the way he'd come. Macy looked on the destruction with surprise.

"Wow," she said. Her expression softened suddenly and she turned her eyes back to Nick. "You did all that just to talk to _me_?"

His cheeks flushed pink and he glanced down at his shoes for a moment. "Well, yeah. I wanted to tell you that I finished the song."

At that moment, another screech emitted from Macy's earphones.

"_SQUEEDLY WINS!_"

Nick picked up the dangling earbud. "But I guess that if you want to listen to Strong Bad—"

"NO!" shouted the brunette. Nick dropped the little bud, not exactly surprised at her reaction, but rather her volume. "Sorry, I just… I felt this strange need to rock out to some harder music today…"

"So, beside Strong Bad, what else do you 'rock out' to? Metallica?" Nick's eyebrows went up and he smirked playfully, but the gesture was lost on Macy.

"Why, do you not like Metallica?" Macy asked, suddenly on edge. Her eyes were wide and a little fearful. At Nick's stunned silence, she blinked and looked away. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't think it would bother you."

"Bother me?" It was Nick's turn to blink. "I like Metallica. I just didn't think you would." She still didn't meet his eyes, so he gripped her chin and gently turned her face toward his. "Liking someone other than JONAS isn't going to make me stop lo—"

"Nick!"

They both jumped and turned to see who had interrupted, finding that the oldest Lucas brother was dashing up to them, an eager look on his face.

"Oh, hey, Macy," he said, giving the girl a quick smile. He turned back to Nick. "I've been looking all over for you! I _finally_ perfected the banana joke!"

"The banana…?" Nick narrowed his brown eyes in concentration. However, when he remembered what his brother was referring to, he rolled them in annoyance. "Oh. _That_."

"What's the banana joke?" asked Macy, curious more as to why Nick looked so peeved than the actual joke. Kevin beamed at her and bent low in an over-dramatic bow.

"Thank you for asking, milady!" He grinned cheekily, ignoring the way his younger brother bristled. He was sure that the only reason he was still alive was because Macy would be present to witness the carnage if Nick attacked him. "Okay… what did the banana do when the police showed up?"

He waited, eyebrows raised expectantly. He first looked at Nick, who was frowning impatiently, before he turned to Macy.

"I don't know," the girl said at last. "What did he do?"

"He SPLIT!" Kevin said, breaking into hysterical laughter. "Geddit? He _split_!"

The bell rang and the young man walked away, still laughing wildly at his own joke. The other two could only blink in bewilderment before they turned to look at one another. All of a sudden, the pair burst out laughing in the middle of the hall, neither exactly sure what had brought on the attack (for it was definitely _not_ Kevin's joke). Eventually, though, they had to start down the hall for Algebra II.

"So, um," Macy said, trying to keep herself from bursting into giggles again. "What were you saying when Kevin interrupted?"

Nick looked down at her, surprised she remembered. "Oh! Ah…" He raised a hand to scratch his dark brown curls. "Just that, you know, nobody's going to hate you for, you know, liking somebody beside JONAS."

Both knew that he had been about to say something very different, but Macy chose not to call him on it. Nick never saw the small smile on her lips as they entered their first class.

X

Normally, lunch was a grand affair for JONAS and associated parties. Joe and Stella would open talks by trying to top each other's morning woes.

_Oh,_ Stella would say. _I barely had time to do my hair._

_That's nothing,_ Joe would scoff. _I had to skip breakfast!_

And so Stella would come back with a long list of misfortune, to which Joe would respond with a bald-faced lie. And after being called out on his attempted trickery, Joe would apologize and surrender victory to Stella. The rare but highly entertaining instances that saw Joe defending his lie also occasionally ended with Kevin and Macy attempting to break the tense silence—but usually led to a high-speed chase around the cafeteria.

While the two created havoc, Kevin and Macy would fill Nick and each other in on the most recent complaints and comments made by either side. Nick would usually smirk in his way and refuse to comment, instead bringing up some recent sporting event.

Today was _not_ one of those rare days, however.

"Joe, Kevin told me when he got to school this morning that you forgot to set your alarm." Stella said. She glared at her peas, refusing to meet the boy's eyes. She stabbed the ugly green vegetables with more force the necessary, muttering under her breath, "Raccoons, huh? Yeah, right…"

There was silence for a moment, during which the other three people at the table found themselves extremely uncomfortable. Finally, just as Nick was about to spring in with a 'How about them Mets?' Joe bowed his head. "Okay, Stella, you win. I'm sorry."

This led to a glowing (coughGLOATINGcough) Stella, who immediately began rattling off details about the new modifications to the Stellavator (patent pending).

"I've been working with Macy's Stellavator on voice activation—" she began.

"Wait, _Macy's_ got a Stellavator?" Joe interrupted.

The lone blonde of the five sent him a look—one that simply _screamed_ 'don't push your luck.' "Macy's is the prototype. I needed to test it _somehow_, and I don't exactly need one, _do_ I?"

Joe's mouth flapped uselessly for a moment until Stella decided to spare him and turned to his younger brother. "So, what finally broke your writer's block on _Out of Mind_?"

"How did you know about that?" asked Nick. He glared at his brothers accusingly and sent a curious glance at the small brunette beside him.

"I saw the sheet music in the shower," replied Stella, causing the boy to wince. "So what happened?"

Macy, who had been enjoying the show up until the mention of Nick's song, found herself tensing up. Would he tell her the truth? If he did, there was no WAY their meeting that afternoon would _resemble_ private. If he didn't, she wouldn't know what to think. For shame or safety?

Before she could reach a definite conclusion in her head, he supplied an answer.

"I talked to Macy about it yesterday and she actually helped a lot," Nick said. He sent her a brief smile that shattered her internal debate to smithereens. "I was coming at it from a wrong perspective."

He wasn't looking at the blonde any more, but instead into Macy's chocolate eyes. If he had been paying attention, he may have notice Stella's stunned and happy expression. But he didn't, so he was entirely unprepared for the Macy-like squeal that erupted from the mouth of his oldest friend.

"_Ow_," his brothers complained in unison, to which he agreed whole-heartedly.

"Stella, it's just a _song_," Macy said. She was unable to keep a smile from pulling at the corners of her mouth as she continued, "Deep breaths!"

There was stunned silence at the table before they all burst out laughing.

X

Macy sat with a groan on the bench in the atrium, unable to suppress a grimace as she rubbed her temple. Stella was just so… so…

_Stubborn? Pig-headed? Annoying?_

She shook her head of such thoughts, which weren't really worthy of her best friend. She was just in a bad mood because she was late for their meeting—and so was Nick.

She knew that he wasn't so impatient that he would leave after ten minutes (like Joe). Nor was he so easily distracted, so he couldn't have wandered off (like Kevin). And he certainly wasn't spending the time primping or fussing over that stain on his tie (like Stella). So the fact that he wasn't there was a glaring sign that something was wrong.

"Hey," someone said behind her. She yelped with surprised and leapt out of her seat.

"Nick!" she exclaimed. He released a dazzling grin on her. "I-I… Sorry I'm late—"

"Macy," he interrupted. _Not again!_

"Stella just wouldn't stop talking about the song and me breaking your block—"

"Macy."

"And I just couldn't get away without looking suspicious—"

"Macy."

"And it sounded like you really didn't want an audience for this—"

"Macy," the curly-haired boy said insistently, but she was on a roll. Only drastic measures would get her to stop. He sighed and propped his guitar on the end of the bench.

"And I don't, either, to be—" The girl cut herself off when Nick took her by the shoulders and sat her down. His eyes were locked on hers and, though his mouth was set in a serious line, she could see a smile in his gaze.

"Macy," he began. "I got here later than you, so I should be apologizing." He closed his eyes and held a hand between them to halt the flood of protests. "I don't want to hear it. I apologize for being late and I'm _not_ taking that back."

Macy's first instinct was to pout, but this only made her companion laugh as he reached for his guitar.

"That only works on Kevin," he teased. She stuck her tongue out at him, this time aiming for the chuckle she got.

"So," she said, after he'd calmed into a smiling silence. She patted the bench next to her, begging him to sit with her mind. He was already taller than her when they were both standing; he didn't need to put a crick in her neck when it could be avoided. He sat.

They were silent for a long moment, but it wasn't as uneasy as it might have been, say, twenty-four hours ago. Macy smiled a little when she thought about the difference one little note had brought.

Finally, Nick let out a sigh.

"Look, I've been sweating over this all day," he said. "So I'm just gonna go ahead and sing the song. Um… okay?"

The brunette blinked at the rather… abrupt manner in which this came, but nodded and shared her grin with him. She was rewarded immediately with one of his signature half-smiles—the kind that had the tendency to turn her into a puddle of happy goo.

He started strumming on the guitar, but he had barely got out a chord when he stopped and snapped his fingers.

"Oh! I nearly forgot to tell you," he said. Now he _really_ smiled, like he had yesterday, right before… well. "I wrote this for you, Macy. It was always going to be for you, even before you helped me out."

"You _what_?" Macy asked, but he was already strumming again.

A little miffed that he hadn't bothered to answer her, she still got a sense of pleasure that she'd been right about the uplifting tone; what he was playing reminded her of some of the band's earliest work, right after they'd done a few Disney covers a few years ago.

And then he began to sing.

_There's a freckle on your chin,  
__And a wave in your hair.  
__Your smile is so amazing  
__That I just have to stare._

_There's so much I could say,  
__But I can't say it all.  
__You just took one look at me  
__And I began to fall._

His eyes never left her while he sang and Macy could feel herself smiling in spite of her shock. He had written her a song? He had noticed all of these things about her? He _really_ felt this way; so strongly that he couldn't express it all in a song? He was smiling so brightly as he sang, his voice was so earnest, his eyes were _so_ expressive. What he couldn't say with words, he was trying to tell her with his eyes… And there was no way it was anything but the truth.

_You're out of my hair,  
__But you're under my skin.  
__There's no way I could forget you  
__Or the way you pull me in._

_You're out of my sight,  
__But you're still on my mind.  
__And even when you're not there  
__I can still see your eyes._

Her eyes lit up when she heard the chorus. He'd really taken her advice! It worked so much better now that he was 'reassuring' his listener (her!) that she was always on his mind. Two years ago, she was listening to CDs and _pretending_ she was getting a private concert. Now, she was sitting right next to him, listening to a song that he wrote for her to tell her that he never stopped thinking about her, that even when she was gone, he was still thinking of her, that she "pulled him in."

_You barely blink;  
__But that's okay,  
_'_Cause I don't mind at all.  
__I'll just stare into your chocolate eyes  
__And let myself fall._

_I can't taste the sugar,  
__But I can look all I need!  
__A special heartache,  
__A secret longing,  
__And I forget to breathe._

She smiled a little wanly at the reference to his medical condition. Was he implying that she was too sweet for him to handle?

_You're out of my hair,  
__But you're under my skin.  
__There's no way I could forget you  
__Or the way you pull me in._

_You're out of my sight,  
__But you're still on my mind.  
__And even when you're not there  
__I can still see your eyes._

This time she could mouth along to the lyrics, even if she didn't dare sing them. She saw him smile as he watched her—was he amused that she'd learned the chorus so quickly? With a little trill on the last word, Nick strummed to a finish. His eyes were anxious and he bit his lip before posing the inevitable question.

"Well?" he said, putting his guitar off to the side.

"That was AMAZING!" Macy exclaimed. "I mean, yesterday was great, but… _wow_."

He smiled with relief and took her hand in his. "I've been so worried about this. You're the only girl beside Stella that I've ever been afraid to write about."

Macy laughed. "You've tried to write about Stella?"

"Sort of," Nick said, chuckling himself. "It was right before we hit it big—I was trying to go for something about friendship, but my songs kept disappearing. I blamed Joe at the time and I'm still not convinced that he was innocent."

The brunette laughed again and he joined her, finding humor simply in the way her eyes crinkled at the corners and her mouth stretched into a wide grin.

"It really is frustrating, the way those two can get," Macy agreed. "Stella is _so_ convinced that a relationship would ruin everything."

"I can't say that I agree," Nick said. He leaned closer to the girl and whispered conspiratorially. "And neither can Joe."

Macy caught the joke and leaned toward him. "Really?"

It hit her how close they were right then. She could count his eyelashes if she wanted to. This seemed to be apparent to Nick, because the look in his eyes was quickly changing. The joking disappeared and was replaced by something she couldn't quite name. He came even closer, so that their noses brushed against each other. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Really," he murmured, then closed the distance between them. It was not the hard, rushed kiss of yesterday. His mouth was gentle, moving slowly against hers in a way that she couldn't help but respond. She was hesitant at first, but encouraged when she felt him smile into her mouth.

She didn't remember when her free hand went to his hair, but it was there and she wasn't going to move it any time soon. The curls were soft and seemed to wrap themselves around her fingers as she teased the strands.

She didn't remember when his free hand had found her waist, but it had and she never wanted it to move. His fingers discovered a spot where he could trace small circles without tickling her and she knew without a doubt that his piano was a very lucky instrument.

Somehow, their hands were still tangled when he finally pulled away. He didn't move far, but rested his forehead against hers while he caught his breath.

"Wow," Macy said. Even this close, Nick could see that her smile was dazzling. "I… you… _WOW_."

"You certainly have a way with words," said the boy. He winked and kissed her again. "Wow."

Sorely tempted to thumb her nose at him, Macy merely grinned and asked, "_Now_ will you tell me what you were going to say when Kevin interrupted us this morning?"

He seemed to give it careful consideration before he beamed, picked up his guitar, and said, "If you can catch me."

He bolted and laughter echoed through the empty hall.

"_NICK!_" Macy yelled, giving chase. "COME BACK HERE!"

* * *

_fin

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_

_a/n: Omigod. This is like, way too long. Now I know why authors are always apologizing about length. This is really ridiculous! When I first typed it up directly from my composition book, it was 2996 words. Now it's 3139. RIDICULOUS._

_So, **this is THE END**. If you are new to the story, **YOU DO NOT NEED TO PUT IT ON ALERT**. If I do anything else in this universe (meaning, the universe of _Seven Times Better_. And it's not likely, unless it's Joella) it will be put in a different story._

_Also, though I'm not sure why this is a problem, I've had people alerting my one-shots. _Rejection_ is a one-shot and will only be expanded if I feel like it. So please, **DON'T BOTHER ALERTING COMPLETED STORIES**. :D_

_Um. So. That's pretty much it. If you have any questions or concerns, review or PM. Even if you don't have any questions or concerns, a review would be nice. :D_

_OH! And a MILLION-BILLION-JILLION thanks to __**WyszLo**__, who corrected a song title in the last chapter. I wasn't thinking when I was typing everything up._

_So, I guess this is good-bye for now._

_Much love,  
__Beth_

_

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__**edit: I**__**'**__**ve bolded a few things here, since people don**__**'**__**t seem to realize that this story is a COMPLETED two-shot and WILL NOT be updated.**_

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_**edit again: I forgot to mention in the author**__**'s note that I**__**'m looking for a beta willing to do Camp Rock and JONAS stories. If you could PM me or review with information, I would be profoundly grateful.**___

_**

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**_

_**I CANNOT BELIEVE I FORGOT!! My brother gets full credit for the banana joke. It was reluctantly supplied—as a matter of fact, my brother yelled at me for using it. And Trogdor. But who cares what he says, anyways? So long as he keeps supplying me with lame/awesome jokes.**_

He literally squeezed my head when he found out I used Trogdor. I couldn't stop laughing.


End file.
